Sky-Coloured Bird

Sky-coloured bird, blue wings with no more spots of spotless
     white
Dappled, than on a day in spring
When the brown meadows trickle with a hundred brooks two
     inches broad and wink and flash back light—
Dappled with no more white than on an all but cloudless sky 
     makes clear blue deeper and more bright.

Exquisite glutton, azure coward with proud crest
And iridescent nape—
Mild milky mauve, chalcedony, then lustred, and all amethyst,
     then brushed with bronze, the half-green clustered with 
     the ripe grape, under the lapis crest.
Dull-feathered bird today, pecking at ashes by the cinder-pit, 
     your clanging tone alone makes known our northern jay 
Sky-coloured under a slaty sky sky-coloured still, slate-grey.